Follow the Leader
by CyanideSlavery
Summary: [lang, underage smoking] A short drabble about Matt’s arrival at the orphanage and his first encounter with Mello. One shot?


**Title: **Follow the Leader

**Fandom: **Death Note

**Pairing:** none

**Rating:** PG 13

**Warnings:** A little cursing (then again we expect that from Mello)

**Description:** A short drabble about Matt's arrival at the orphanage and his first encounter with Mello. One shot?

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Death Note, it is the property of its creators Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takeshi.

**!Note!:** I know that Matt's real name is not Matthew, however this was written quite some time ago, when Matt had made his first appearance in the series and all we knew was that his name was Matt. I only recently found it on my computer and decided to share it. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

They had been encouraged by the orphanage to take on a pseudonym when they arrived. The teachers said that it helped to distance themselves from the lives and families that they had given up, that it would help them focus on their one true goal.

Matthew simply shortened his name to Matt. The teachers told him that his new name should be completely different; he simply shrugged, telling them that he liked his name and didn't see a point in changing something that had not yet been rendered useless and continued to play his gameboy. Although the teachers did not agree with this idea they let him keep his semi-new name, he knew that it was only because they had been instructed to nurture the oddities of the young 'geniuses'.

Matt thought that this place was stupid. The orphanage had close to one hundred children residing there and they were all aiming for the same goal: to become L's successor. This inevitably meant that only one person could succeed the almighty L and that the other 99 children would be left disappointed and many unable to fit into a normal life.

Matt would never have this problem. By the time he came to the orphanage he was already considered an outcast by society and he never really wanted to succeed L anyway. He had always been much more content to follow whoever seemed to want to take the lead. It was simpler that way.

He supposed that this was why he and Mello had become friends so quickly.

When Matt had first arrived at the orphanage a woman had lead him to a room three doors from the end of the dormitory hallway. People assumed he was ignorant, he wasn't, he noticed everything and remembered everything…he simply chose to show little intrest in his surroundings…they were of no importance to him.

The woman knocked tentatively on the dark wooden door.

"What?" Came the short reply of someone with a twangy… probably American accent

"Uh…Mello…you have a new room mate." She replied cautiously

Matt heard loud cursing from behind the door before it opened, he briefly looked up from his gameboy to see a boy with shoulder length golden blonde hair, clad in leather, a rosary around his neck and bar of half eaten chocolate in his hand, scowling at them.

"Okay well I'll leave you both to it then." She said before retreating quickly

"Who the fuck are you?" the boy named Mello demanded

"Matt." He replied quietly, eyes never leaving the screen of his gameboy

Mello crossed his arms and leant against the doorframe "What are you doing here?"

Matt shrugged "My parents wanted me out of their hair."

Mello's eyes wandered over the taller boy before him in an almost calculating manner. Matt waited patiently, the silence only disturbed by the soft noises coming from the console in Matt's hands. Fifteen minutes passed before Mello's scowl lightened slightly and he stepped aside, silently granting the new boy entrance to the room.

Matt didn't move from where he stood.

Mello walked back over to his bed and dropped onto it.

"Either come in or piss off don't just stand in the doorway all day!" Mello snapped after a few minutes as he began reading a book which had been lying, open on the bed

Matt walked into the room and sat cross-legged on the only other bed occupying the room. He absently pulled a cigarette from the pack in his jeans pocket and lit it, never once missing a beat in his game.


End file.
